CHAPTER VI 



THE PUPIL TEACHER: AVIGNON ( I 84 1 -43) 



'TpHE Stroke of misfortune which sud- 

 -'- denly interrupted Jean-Henri's studies 

 at the Rodez lycee made him an exile from 

 his father's house and banished him from his 

 native countryside. 



For the second time he was, as it were, 

 dropped upon the road like Perrault's Tom 

 Thumb. And the fairy-tale comes to life 

 again in the Odyssey of the poor boy who 

 wandered at random, picking up his food at 

 hazard, facing misfortune with a stout heart, 

 and smiling whenever he could at the poem 

 of Nature, who always had some fresh sur- 

 prise in store for him. 



Who can fail to be moved by pity and ad- 

 miration, beholding him set forth upon the 

 broad, white highroads, a wandering child, 

 all but lost, seeking his way, seeking his live- 

 lihood even, without other relief, in his ex- 

 tremity of distress, and almost without other 

 food than his love of Nature and his pas- 



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